Gordon Brown refuses to back the travelling public against the BA strikers

Even by the PM's standards, his performance at Prime Minister's Questions today was lamentable. Repeatedly pressed by David Cameron, he refused to criticise the British Airways strikers or back the travelling public. Why?

Because, since Gordon Brown took over, £11 million – 25 per cent of all Labour Party funding – has come from the BA strikers' union, Unite. This one trade union sponsors 148 Labour MPs and candidates, and has loaned its political director Charlie Whelan, to Labour to manage its general election campaign. Forced to choose between Unite and the electorate, the Broon chose Unite. He may be a morose, girning, wastrel, but he's nae scab!

To see why this matters, take a quick dekko at Burning Our Money. Look, in particular, at the two graphs showing the extent to which trade unions have become public sector institutions and (sequentially) how many more days are lost to strikes on the state payroll. These statistics explain why Labour will never make the retrenchments necessary to bring our deficit back to manageable proportions. Bring on the election!